The patent is held by NASA, but licensed to a manufacturer.
http://www.larc.nasa.gov/news_and_events/i...c98/98-097.html
The manufacturer of the strakes is Boundary Layer Research. They build all sorts of stuff for fixed-wings, and strakes for many different helicopter types.
http://www.blrvgs.com/
Whatever makes it work, the idea is popular. Whether the additional lift is worth the cost is often debated, but most pilots agree that they do allow the aircraft to lift more, especially in a vertical lift, such as pulling a drill or bucket out of a hole.
Some additional thoughts......
I may be wrong (an all-too-regular occurence) but I believe it involves some form of the "Coanda Effect", which is an aerodynamic effect relating to pressure-changes caused by air moving past a round-shaped object. This pressure then moves the object in a required direction.
Sometimes pressure is increased on one side of an object to "push" it away from it's present position, or a vacuum could be created to "pull" an object, using the same basic ideas of flow.
The Coanda effect has already been used in helicopters, such as MD Notars. They tried strakes or "fences" and ended up using slots in the tailboom.
http://home.wanadoo.nl/helicopter/development.htm
Henri Coanda was a Romanian aircraft designer. He designed the world's first jet airplane in 1910, but discovered the flow of exhaust along the airframe acted in some interesting ways. His research of these flows led to the effect being utilised, and named after him. (He dropped the jet-plane idea and other people such as Heinkle and Whittle were credited with inventing it 30 years later).
Most physicists think this is how pitchers can make a baseball do weird things on its way to the batsman, and why golfballs are dimpled.
Many physicists still argue about why a wing creates lift. However, they all seem to agree that it is not just caused by Bernoulli's theory, but also by some amount of Coanda effect, and other factors.
It has also been used to power ships. The Coanda "mast" area produces alot more power than a conventional sail, per square foot. The masts are spun around on a vertical axis, and a normal diesel engine and propellor starts the ship moving forward. The spinning masts are now moving forward through the surrounding air and create a vacuum in front of themselves (due to the Coanda effect). Once the ship starts sucking itself forward the diesel engine is shut down.
http://www.cousteausociety.org/vessels/vessels.htm
I hope this helps and is somewhat accurate.
Have to agree with ya on that one 407 
